


After Nightfall

by heartspocky



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Comfort Sex, Domestic, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Kingdom Hearts II, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:05:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartspocky/pseuds/heartspocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Kokanshu's defunct KH kink meme. Prompt: Sora tops; lovemaking.</p><p>After returning home, the boys have trouble adjusting to living without fear--of heartless attacks, the darkness, and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Nightfall

**Author's Note:**

> I think the tags make this sound darker than it is. It's mostly fluff. Promise.

When Sora’s eyes opened he noticed that the clock on his desk read 2:30 AM, which meant he had only gotten an hour’s worth of sleep since the last time he had awoken. He sat up in his bed and, for a short moment, watched the unmoving lump beside him. For reasons he couldn’t entirely be sure of he slowly held out his arm, summoning his keyblade. The flash of light briefly lit up the room as it appeared, expelling every last trace of darkness. Then, his arm falling back to his lap, it vanished. He didn’t need it anymore. And hopefully he would never need it again. He briefly considered summoning it one more time before deciding that it would be too conspicuous; the window was only a few feet away, after all, and someone would probably notice the light flashing on and off.  
  
He wondered when he would reach the point where he could get a full night’s sleep again. As it was, he was too aware of every little noise that the house made as it settled, too used to being woken at midnight to relieve Donald or Goofy from night watches on those long journeys when they couldn’t find decent shelter.  
  
Again he looked to his side. Riku was awake--and he probably had been, long before Sora. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. But that’s how Sora could tell; the enormous flash of light from a second ago should have caused Riku to stir but instead he remained still, breathing steadily. Plus, Riku talked and moved in his sleep. Sora wasn’t sure if Riku always had and he had just been too much of a heavy sleeper to even notice, or if that was something new to his best friend, like the nightmares and the anxiety attacks and the bouts of wanting nothing more than to be left alone. As Sora never developed those new… traits, he often wondered if those were the consequences of embracing the darkness.  
  
Instead of anything else, Sora couldn’t sleep.  
  
At 4:15 AM, Sora finally resigned himself, cuddling into the covers and closing his eyes. He noticed that Riku was asleep again; his breathing had become uneven. Sora briefly wondered what his boyfriend was dreaming about before finally dozing for another hour.  
  
In the morning, neither of them spoke. When Sora woke at 6 he decided that it was as good a time to get up as any, and it seemed as though Riku was knocked out for the morning. He took a long, hot shower, closing his eyes and sighing as the water hit his back. He felt groggy, but at least the promise of eggs in the fridge took the mind off his lack of sleep. He couldn’t wait to eat and go meet his friends at the play island.  
  
The comfort of knowing that Kairi, that Tidus and Wakka and Selphie, would all be there in the morning, safe and in one piece, was one he would never take advantage of again.  
  
He rinsed the shampoo from his hair and turned off the water, sighing as he began his morning routine. Sora considered waking Riku before deciding against it, instead walking out the door and to the shore, where he could rent a boat to get to the next island.  
  
Selphie was already there when he arrived, which didn’t surprise him; a natural morning person, she loved to watch the sunrise and ended up sticking around well into the afternoon. They greeted one another and engaged in small talk for a few minutes before Sora made his way to the paopu island. Wakka was the first to join them, followed closely by Kairi. As Tidus made his appearance, Sora grew anxious. Maybe he should have woken Riku instead of just leaving, maybe Riku hadn’t assumed Sora would be at the small island, maybe he was sick and still in bed…  
  
“You okay, Sora?” Kairi asked, startling the boy from his thoughts.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”  
  
Sora shrugged, glancing back at her for the first time. “I got a couple of hours in.” Kairi placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and squeezed.  
  
“That’s good,” she responded softly. She left her hand for a moment before turning to leave.  
  
“You know where to find me if you want to talk about anything.”  
  
“…Thanks,” Sora said after a minute, but she had already gone. He sighed and closed his eyes before taking a seat on the low paopu tree; it gave slightly under his weight. Sora figured it had maybe another year before snapping altogether—it had gone through storms and fights and teens sitting and jumping on it hundreds of times. Paopu trees, in the right conditions, could live for a long time; but it was honestly a miracle that the deformed one had held up so nicely for so many years.  
  
Sora was just beginning to sink back into his mind when he heard another voice call his name.  
  
“Riku,” he said. “I was wondering if you were gonna come out at all.” He scooted to the side to allow Riku room to sit, wincing slightly when the tree made an almost sickly sound beneath them. “When did you get to sleep last night?” Riku waited a long time before shrugging, tilting back his head enough to slide the hair draped over his shoulder behind him.  
  
“I don’t know. I was awake long enough to hear you get up a couple of times.” Riku paused, seeming unsure whether or not to continue. “You summoned the keyblade. Why?”  
  
“…I don’t know. It was comforting, I guess.”  
  
Again Riku shrugged as though to say, _fair enough_. Casually Sora reached out his hand to touch Riku’s, causing the older boy to smile. “I’m glad you’re here.” Sora said suddenly. Riku thought the comment odd but chose not to say anything about it.  
  
“It’s… kind of nice to be back.” For the first time that day, Sora cracked a smile.  
  
“Just ‘nice’? I travel across a dozen worlds _twice_ to track you down and all you can come up with is ‘nice’?” Riku laughed, and the fact that he could do so with such a natural, carefree ease always came as a relief to Sora and, as she had expressed that very thought time and time again, Kairi too. That they could make each other laugh had always been, Sora thought, one of the most important aspects of their friendship. For the first time in several years, it truly hit him—he could afford to be comfortable. They could smile and laugh again. There was no reason not to, everything was okay. Neither of them knew how long it would last, but for now things were okay. “Okay, you ungrateful bastard. Let’s go home. The sun’s been beating down on my head all day and I’m getting hot.”  
  
“Me, too.”  
  
When the boys got back home, they went straight up to Sora’s bedroom and flopped down on the bed. “I love summer.” Sora said into his pillow before sitting up to continue coherently, “But not when the air conditioning is broken.” Riku made an odd sort of “mmph” sound in agreement, taking his—old—usual space next to Sora on the outside of the bed. He couldn’t even count how many times he had slept next to his friend when they were small, arm dangling off the edge and nearly touching the floor, Sora sometimes falling asleep with his head on the window sill as the sight of the play island in the distance, the rhythm of the waves, the light of the moon, helped him to finally nod off. And of course, his mother scolding him in the morning because damn it, one of these days he would fall right out of the second story window and then what?

But since they’d come back Sora couldn’t sleep with the window open and Riku had nightmares and sleep talked and would roll out of bed in a panic if allowed on that side, and so Sora’s spot became Riku’s. And neither of them could really believe that they both still fit after so many years.  
  
Riku moved closer to Sora and threw an arm over him.

“You’re sweaty,” he pointed out, but it didn’t stop him from nuzzling close and laying a kiss on the shorter boy’s neck.  
  
Sora didn’t respond to the words of affection, instead casually moving Riku away from him and swinging his legs over, planting his feet on the floor. “I should go take a shower.” He said almost apologetically as he got up, stretching, and made his way into the bathroom.  
  
“Yeah... I’ll be here, then,” Riku replied indignantly, staring at the Sora-less space where the boy sat only thirty seconds ago.  
  
“I didn’t mean to blow you off earlier,” Sora said as he set the kitchen timer, hair still damp from the shower he took close to an hour earlier. Consistently absent parents made Sora learn his way around a kitchen at a young age; he could still vividly remember the dubious look on Donald’s face when he discovered that yes, Sora could cook, no, it wasn’t poisonous, no, Sora wasn’t quite as incompetent as they thought he was. It brought a little smile to his face. That had been at the beginning, when it had been fun, before Nobodies, before he learned that Kairi lost her heart, before Riku had…  
  
“It’s fine. I wasn’t mad or anything. It’s hot and I’m tired, that’s all.”  
  
“Okay. I did kind of throw you off me… I didn’t mean to do _that_.”  
  
“I don’t care, it’s really okay.”  
  
For the rest of the time it took for dinner to cook, Sora and Riku sat in silence at the kitchen table. Sora quietly decided he’d be thankful when his parents came home the next month.  
  
He had never liked the length of time he was left alone because of his parents’ jobs, which mostly consisted of traveling, but he at least appreciated how active they were in his life in their at-home months. Still, he didn’t mind the time he got to spend playing house with his best friend. If he was counting correctly, this would be Riku’s third night staying over at his place, and that morning had marked the fourth day. Earlier in the week he jokingly asked Riku if his parents even knew he was gone. When Riku had, in good spirit, joked that he figured he had another week before someone came to check on him, Sora decided not to ask anything like that again. He didn’t think Riku and his parents would ever quite see eye-to-eye, and he hated that his best friend never once got to experience the life that Sora had, never the hero in the light, the love interest, the golden boy…  
  
But Riku’s thoughts drifted far from anything of that sort.  
  
He and Sora had been… more or less together since they had returned to Destiny Islands the first time. Riku had admitted his love for Sora as soon as they returned; Sora followed a week later. In Sora’s home they kissed and they bathed together, ate together, slept together. They held hands or hugged or fucked, hard and fast and dirty, in Sora’s bed, on the couch, on the floor.  
  
And the second they stepped outside, they went back into friend mode. And he was okay with it, really just fine with it, he didn’t need to scream from the rooftops that he and Sora were together. He learned just what happened when you ask for more than what you’re given and he wasn’t out to start anymore… incidents, no matter how small. But he couldn’t stand the uncertainty. Was Sora simply ashamed to make a single reference of their relationship status around their friends? Was he playing it down to keep Kairi’s attention?  
  
Already Riku’s mind was spinning in that direction, if Sora loved her that would be okay, just as long as he didn’t love her more, just as long as could still have his long weekends away from his home to be with Sora and the sparring—once he stopped being afraid of losing control and hurting him… Or maybe Sora would always be mad about the betrayal those years ago, Riku honestly wouldn’t blame him, maybe this was his way of telling Riku just where he stood… but that wouldn’t be like him and…  
  
When the buzzer rang, Riku jumped and Sora let out a short cry, standing so fast he knocked the chair over as he summoned the keyblade in his left hand. “…Oops.” He said when he realized the source of the noise. He glanced down before letting the keyblade disappear. “Reflex. That was weird.” Then he grinned and laughed and grabbed an oven mitt from the counter.  
  
“The heartless haven’t been active for a while now,” Riku pointed out, kneeling on the floor to pink up Sora’s chair. “Are you sure you’re all right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sora replied lightly. “Just… easily startled, I guess.” Again they fell quiet as Sora dished them both up; he didn’t speak again until they were almost finished eating. All the while, Riku was still wondering what made him avoid the kiss in his room earlier, or if it had meant anything at all. “So… can you still tell when the heartless are active?”  
  
Riku nearly dropped his fork; he hadn’t exactly been expecting a question like _that_ to come out of nowhere. “I… well, yeah. And no.”  
  
“Glad we got that cleared up.”  
  
Riku snorted and rolled his eyes, glancing down at the plate only to find that he wasn’t hungry anymore. “When Maleficent first granted me the power to control heartless, I could always tell what was going on. If I was in an area where you had just offed a bunch of them, I could tell that the… presence was gone. Not that they were just hiding somewhere or they hadn’t appeared yet. They were gone.”  
  
“And the other way around.” Sora interjected.  
  
“Right. If there was a place especially susceptible to the darkness, I knew. After I stopped using my powers I could still tell sometimes. If the presence was strong it would… almost seep into my senses.”  
  
“So you could like, taste the darkness?”  
  
“Or smell it.”  
  
Sora wrinkled his nose. “Does it smell nasty?”  
  
“It’s… distasteful.”  
  
Silence fell once again as Sora began picking at the last of his dinner; Riku still refused to touch the plate, fork still in hand. “Does it still work that way?” It took Riku a moment to respond, to figure out just how to. He had never spoken so frankly about the matter to anyone and wasn’t entirely sure how it felt—especially to Sora, who just sat so patiently and listened to what Riku’s life was like back when he wanted to kill his best friend to steal the girlfriend. Or something like that.  
  
“It’s hard to explain. I don’t think that there’s anything strong enough near to us that effects my senses. That’s why I’m so certain that we’re safe now. I would feel the darkness a lot stronger if something were to happen. And I don’t. But then, I’m not so sure. My dark powers are gone now, so maybe I just can’t tell those things anymore, but I can still remember what it was like. It kind of goes both ways… I don’t really get it, myself.”  
  
Sora hummed in response, grabbing their plates and placing them in the sink. “I know it must be hell for you, all right?” He said good naturedly. “But it comes in really handy for me.” Riku cracked a smile.  
  
“Well, I’m glad my suffering hasn’t been completely in vain.”  
  
They left the kitchen in a brighter mood than when they entered it, and it followed them up to the bedroom. “Are you going to take a shower tonight?” Sora asked as he pulled on his pajamas. “Because I want to get to bed early.”  
  
“Nah, I took one before I left for the island this morning.”  
  
“You staying up?”  
  
“Just for a little while longer. I’m not tired yet, so I’m just going to head downstairs and watch TV for a while or something.”  
  
If Sora hadn’t known Riku’s current sleeping pattern issues, the fact that the boy couldn’t look him in the face as he spoke would have been enough of a giveaway to tell that Riku was lying. Still, he decided not to press the matter any further. He and Riku had been friends for so long, he didn’t want to suddenly be boyfriend-Sora instead of friend-Sora, because boyfriend-Sora didn’t know when the wrong lines were being crossed or if kissing Riku in public was okay, but friend-Sora always knew what was right, what to say, how to act. “Cool. Don’t worry about waking me when you get to bed, because I’ll probably be up anyway.”  
  
“I hope not, for your sake. Good night.”  
  
“Night, Riku.”  
  
For a moment, Sora sat on the bed, listening to each step give as Riku walked downstairs. He vaguely heard the sound of the TV turn on, but Riku must have turned it down because the sound faded after a moment. Unsure why he waited in the first place, Sora crawled under the covers and tried to sleep.  
  
When Sora woke up at 2, Riku was next to him. Sighing, Sora calculated how long he had been asleep. Six hours. The longest stretch of time in… well, he supposed, a year. The downside, of course, was that he was wide awake. Normally he was tired enough to turn around and get back to sleep soon enough to finish whatever he had been dreaming about, but he felt as though he had already gotten more than a full night’s rest. Six hours in one period, though he somewhat remembered Riku crawling into bed at 11 or so. The night before he had only gotten three hours of sleep, and that was with him waking up every twenty minutes—well, except for that lost period between 2 and 4, but he had been up thinking. He could have gone back to sleep if he wanted to. Still, he figured he should at least be thankful for the amount of time he had been able to remain unconscious, even if it was ending up a great big pain in the ass.  
  
“Riku,” he whispered. “Are you asleep?”  
  
A moment of silence passed before he received a response. “No.”  
  
“Have you gotten any sleep all night?” A longer pause made its presence in the hushed conversation.  
  
“…No.”  
  
Sora sighed, turning to face Riku and sliding his arm underneath the pillow to get to the cool side. “You’re afraid of having nightmares, aren’t you? That’s why you don’t sleep.” The longest pause yet before Riku responded.

“That’s right.”  
  
“Riku… there’s nothing to be afraid of.” As Sora said it, he wondered if he just got Riku to believe it, would he believe it someday too? Would his body stop forcing him up during the ungodly hours of the night--- just in case? Would he stop readying himself for battle after every sudden sound? Shaking himself from those thoughts—it was time to learn how to be boyfriend-Sora, he decided—he said, suddenly, “Come here.”  
  
Riku was too tired to question it, moving closer and welcoming the warm kisses Sora had begun to press against his lips, his face, his neck. He shifted, allowing Sora better access to his body. Now slightly past his collarbone, Sora stopped. “This okay? I mean, are you really up for this right now?”  
  
The half-urgent, half-irritated grunt Sora received from the man underneath him was more than telling. Smiling to himself, Sora pushed himself up and strolled over to his dresser. Sora quickly reached into his sock drawer, pulling out a small bottle. Soon, the quiet but unmistakable rustling sound of Riku pulling off his pajamas filled the room. Just before crawling into bed, Sora removed his as well. He knew he would trip over his pants on his way to the shower in the morning, but he didn’t care. He was too busy looking at Riku, his friend, his boyfriend, his something, naked in the too-too-bright moonlight, eyes closed, chest rising and falling, legs spread just slightly but not quite enough.  
Ready. Waiting. Tense. Habit.  
  
Sora didn’t want it to be that way anymore.  
  
Sora crawled on top of Riku once again, purposely hovering just enough to give the man space to move. Riku remained perfectly still, and just for a moment Sora wished he could see what Riku was thinking, if his mind had wandered somewhere else, into a dark place he visited in his nightmares.  
  
“I love you,” Sora whispered, leaning in close to his boyfriend’s ear. He followed the statement with a quick peck on the cheek before pressing a hand flat against Riku’s chest, trailing it down over his stomach, lower and lower, until he reached the point where he heard Riku’s breath hitch entirely. Sora pulled his hand away only then, opening the bottle of lubricant and smearing what he found to be the perfect amount onto his fingers.  
  
“Sora…” Riku started, not so much a moan as it was a question. He closed his mouth and sighed, choosing not to continue. It wouldn’t have mattered if he were to continue anyway, as Sora quickly pressed his lips against his, kissing him gently and softly. He let Riku set the pace and it didn’t take long for the kiss to deepen, for mouths to open and tongues to clash. If Sora had it his way he’d already be in Riku and they’d be halfway done at this point, but it wasn’t time for that if Riku wasn’t going to make it happen and anyway, it was now nearing three in the morning, the heat was still stifling, and both of them were a bit lethargic. He had to admit, there was no reason to rush. So he just needed to calm down.  
  
As Riku’s body relaxed, Sora broke off the kiss and sat up, reaching over to pry his legs apart farther. He watched Riku’s face carefully, but nothing changed: his eyes were still closed, the ghost of a smile on his lips, and for once, he seemed calm. “Ready?” Sora asked quietly. He caught Riku nod the slightest of nods, and pushed a single finger into the man’s entrance. Only then did he tense up again, but it was a good tense, an adjustment tense that went away quickly, not like before, not something born out of anxiety and anticipation.  
  
Sora slowly pushed in another finger and then a third; Riku let out a small, almost-happy sound as Sora prepped him, stretching and pushing and yeah, there was _pain_ but it wasn’t anything he knew his friend couldn’t handle. Sora repeated his last three words as he finished prepping Riku and slowly, gently, pushed himself inside. He was nervous. He didn’t know why-- he supposed it was because he never really thought about it all those other times. Sora leaned forward to lay a short but passionate kiss on his best friend’s lips, an action which Riku returned wholeheartedly. He shifted his hips, pressing Sora, unintentionally (or maybe intentionally, he couldn’t decide, and he didn’t care) deeper inside. Sora let out a breathy moan.  
  
His anxiety gone, Sora gently took a hold of Riku’s legs, pressing them more firmly against his chest. “That comfortable?” He asked, but his mind wasn’t truly on Riku’s response. He was more focused on the feel of Riku, warm and tight around him, skin soft and sticky with cool sweat, and undeniably beautiful in the natural light.  
  
Once he received the approval he was looking for, Sora began moving his hips. Riku let out the smallest of sounds, throwing his head back and running his short nails down Sora’s back. Sora shuddered and pulled almost entirely out before clutching onto Riku’s hips and thrusting.  
  
Seeming almost outside of his own mind, Riku murmured something hard, but not quite impossible, to catch; an, “Mm, that’s _good_ ,” or something to that effect. Sora closed his eyes and nodded absently, moving again. His thrusts were gentle and smooth, his hands light as they rushed over Riku’s body, stroking the man’s face and eventually finding home buried in his hair. He could feel himself getting closer already and began to pick up speed. He wanted to hold out longer, wanted to make it last, but he wasn’t sure how well he could make that happen. He felt too close to his boyfriend; he didn’t want to concentrate on anything else but giving and receiving the most pleasure, whether it lasted an hour or a minute.  
  
He had never really felt as close to Riku as he did in that moment. Riku moved underneath him in response to the thrusts, shifting his body ever-so-slightly and making these wonderful little noises as Sora found _that spot_ and centered in. He sped up again, hitting that place harder if only to hear his best friend gasp and moan for _more, more_. He then leaned over, just far enough to be able to press light kisses across Riku’s face and neck. As Sora moved, he gently continued running his hands down Riku’s body, saying softly not the usual goading dirty talk, the swears, or the grunts and moans. Overcome with emotion, all he could think to do was just repeat it: “I love you, I love you.” Riku glanced over and for a moment their eyes met; in that single moment it seemed as though everything, the whole world, had stopped in its tracks, but then Riku smiled, his green eyes brighter than Sora had ever seen, especially during _this_. His heart seemed to skip a beat, and the world started moving again. “You’re gorgeous. I love you.”  
  
Riku’s weak laugh turned into another sigh before finally responding with a breathy, “I love you too, sap.” Quickly followed by a pleading: “Don’t stop.”  
  
Sora couldn’t be entirely sure what finally pushed them both over the edge. It seemed like the next thing he knew, Riku’s back arched and he let out another one of those _sounds_ , the best yet, as he came, and Sora followed sometime after that. Panting hard, exhaustion swept over him as he filled his lover and finally pulled out, letting himself collapse over to his side of the bed.  
  
Typically, when the two boys were finished—going at it, if Riku worded it, or fucking as Sora said it, they let an awkward silence take over as one of them retreated into sleep and the other went to take a shower. Not this time. And never again. This time, they simply exchanged shy smiles and final words of passion and gratitude before cuddling in close and drifting off together. If Sora had taken the time to think about it, he could have come up with a thousand more things to say, and even more feelings he couldn’t articulate, of why this was different, why he felt so right and happy and light this time. But of course, he didn’t and neither did Riku, though Sora would later remember thinking, as he reached that twilight, half-asleep state, that maybe switching into boyfriend-mode wouldn’t be so bad after all.  
  
Sora didn’t wake until 10 the following morning. Before deciding to get in a few more hours of sleep, he noticed that Riku lay still, the smallest of smiles on his face, dreaming pleasantly.


End file.
